Up to 1 in 10 people hear voices that others don't. These experiences can be highly stigmatised, rarely talked about, and often hidden from public view.
Yet it is now increasingly recognised that voice-hearing is not a mere symptom of pathology but important aspect of many people's lives. It can be distressing and upsetting, but also positive and meaningful.
Led by Durham University, Hearing the Voice was an interdisciplinary research project that set out to shed light on this phenomenon. It brought academics from anthropology, cognitive neuroscience, history, linguistics, literary studies, medical humanities, philosophy, theology and psychology together with clinicians, artists, activists and experts by experience by experience in order to improve the way people understand, clinically treat and live with experiences of hearing voices.
The project was generously funded by the Wellcome Trust from 2012 to 2022.
For more information about Hearing the Voice, please see our project website and blog.
Explore our key findings
Visit the Exhibition
Visit Understanding Voices
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